Tuesday, December 28, 2010

TUTTO E BENE QUEL CHE FINISCE BENE

According to local media reports, Town Hall employees in Modica have reason to be dancing in the streets before New Year's Eve because it has been announced that their salaries are to be paid.

"What?!" I hear you exclaim. "Surely their salaries are paid anyway, at the end of every month? You work for a month and then you are remunerated." Wrong, dear reader! This is Italy, where some employees deem themselves lucky to be paid at all and this is Modica, Sicily, where the comune has no money and municipal employees have not been paid for at least two months. "But how do the employers expect the workers to live?" you may ask, as, indeed, did I and I have to admit that I do not know the answer.

It has also been announced that the employees will receive the "thirteenth" month's salary - a Christmas bonus or merely the result of one's annual pay having been divided by thirteen instead of twelve, depending on who you work for. Let us hope that in this case it is the former and in some way compensates the workers for their unfailing pazienza.